PHOTOSYNTHETICA

Photosynthetica 2021, 59(4):664-682 | DOI: 10.32615/ps.2021.057

Crop responses and management strategies under shade and drought stress

I. SHAFIQ^{1, 2}, S. HUSSAIN^{1, 2}, B. HASSAN³, A. RAZA⁴, I. AHMAD^{1, 2}, M.A. ASGHAR⁵, Z. WANG^{1, 2}, T. TAN^{1, 2}, S. LI^{1, 2}, X. TAN^{1, 2}, A. GHAFOOR¹, A. MANAF⁶, M. ANSAR⁶, F. YANG^{1, 2}, W. YANG^{1, 2}

¹ College of Agronomy, Sichuan Agricultural University, 211-Huimin Road, Wenjiang District, 611130 Chengdu, China

² Sichuan Engineering Research Centre for Crop Strip Intercropping System, Key Laboratory of Crop Ecophysiology and Farming System in Southwest China (Ministry of Agriculture), Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, China

³ Rice Research Institute and Key Laboratory for Major Crop Diseases, Sichuan Agricultural University at Wenjiang, Chengdu, China

⁴ CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization, Ecological Restoration Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 416, 610041 Chengdu, China

⁵ Agricultural Institute, ELKH Centre for Agricultural Research, 2462 Martonvásár, Brunszvik u. 2, Hungary

⁶ Department of Agronomy, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan

The occurrence of shade and drought stress either individually or simultaneously causes altered morphophysiological and molecular responses in crops. Nevertheless, responses of crop plants to combined shade and drought stress are unique as compared to those of individually occurring stress which urges need to study and identify distinctions, commonalities, and the interaction between responses of plants to these concurrent stress factors. In the present review, we outlined currently available knowledge on responses of plants to shade and drought stress on a shared as well as the unique basis and tried to find a common thread potentially underlying these responses. Then, we briefly described some plausible mitigation strategies to cope with these stresses along with future perspectives. A deeper insight into plant responses to co-occurring shade and drought stress will help us to generate crops with broad-spectrum stress tolerance and increased resilience to such stresses in high planting densities or intercropping systems, thus, ensuring food security.

Additional key words: cooccurring stress; crop; individual stress; morphophysiological and molecular responses; stress management.

Received: August 16, 2021; Revised: October 25, 2021; Accepted: November 16, 2021; Prepublished online: December 14, 2021; Published: December 17, 2021  Show citation